


Be Mine

by DPPatricks



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Happy Ending, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:20:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23700718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DPPatricks/pseuds/DPPatricks
Summary: Now, then, and again now; a reminiscence
Relationships: Ken Hutchinson/David Starsky
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	Be Mine

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally posted on the Starsky&Hutch 911 livejournal site on 1/21/2016

I slid the baking sheet into the pre-heated oven and set the timer. I washed the few bowls and utensils and put them away. After that, because I really didn’t have anything special to do for the next twenty-five minutes, I leaned back against the counter, folded my arms across my chest, and remembered.

*******

Starsky bolted out of the squad room at exactly five p.m., throwing, “My apartment at seven, Hutch, bring beer!” back over his shoulder.

I smiled to myself. Those were the first personal words he’d said to me in almost a week. Maybe we’d be able to salvage our partnership, our friendship, after all. That thought made me cautiously happy.

I finished my report on the Lacey arrest, put it on Captain Dobey’s desk and went home. I showered, shaved and dressed as if I were going on a date: my best cords, a light-weight blue turtleneck and my brown leather coat. If Starsky was willing to work out our recent near partnership-ending difficulties, I was more than eager to do my part.

Having stopped for the requested six pack on the way to his place, I let myself in with my key at precisely seven o’clock. When I opened the door, I was wafted back to eight-year-old-heaven by the smell of chocolate chip cookies! Mother always preferred the more exotic confections such as lady fingers or Venetian wafers, above what she called common fare like peanut butter or Toll House cookies. But bless her heart, Ella, our cook, had baked batches of my, and the neighborhood kids’ favorites as often as possible.

“You baked cookies,” I hollered, the delicious scent overwhelming me.

“You should be a detective,” Starsky laughed, coming out of the kitchen. His oven-mitt-clad hands carried a large baking sheet which he placed on top of the hot pads already in place on the dining table. Shedding the gloves, Starsky took the six pack from me. He gave me one, took another for himself and put the rest in the fridge.

I stared at the sheet, my heart in my mouth. Instead of the two dozen or so individual rounds I expected to see, there was one large thick circular slab. And instead of the dark brown morsels being scattered throughout, they had been carefully arranged in the center to spell two words.

BE  
MINE

Starsky nudged me when I hadn’t made a sound for about ten seconds. “I know you can read, Hutchinson. It’s in your personnel file.”

“Yeah, Starsk.” I had to clear my throat. “I can read.”

He uncapped his beer and handed me the opener. “Sit, partner.”

I did, largely because I wasn’t sure my legs would continue to hold me up if I didn’t. I uncapped my beer with only slight fumbling, tossed the top into the trash and put the church key on the table.

“What’s going on, Starsk?” I swallowed around the lump in my esophagus. “Valentine’s Day was months ago.”

“I know that.” He sat down, his knee touching mine.

My heart skipped a beat before settling into a decidedly faster rhythm.

“But this isn’t about any official holiday, Hutch. Especially not the one invented by the flower, candy and greeting card industries.” He grinned, knowing my thoughts on the commercialism of holidays. “It’s about us. About taking time to celebrate all the years we’ve been together. All the good times we’ve had.”

“And the not so good?” I couldn’t help myself.

“Yeah, o’ course them. The too close calls, every wound, visible and in-. Without the not so good, how would we be able to know how great the good ones are?”

“When did you become a philosopher?”

“Recently.” Starsky’s voice and eyes were solemn. “But I’m serious, buddy. I thought maybe we could make tomorrow S and H Day.”

“Sounds like green stamps,” I remarked, lightly.

He took a sip of his beer, slitted his eyes and growled at me in a terrible Mexican accent. “We don’ need no stinking green stamps.”

I laughed, I couldn’t help it. That was the Starsky I’d fallen in love with and had deliberately pushed away. The one I’d verbally abused and meanly belittled continuously over the past year. Just so that he wouldn’t realize how my feelings had changed.

“Okay.” I put on a straight face. “I’m game. What did you have in mind?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Maybe just going to the beach. Talking about stuff. Remembering. I’ve been taking you for granted, Hutch. I want to quit that. You’re the most important person in the world to me. I need you to know that.”

“I do know, Starsk,” I told him, fervently. “And, if you’ve been taking me for granted, which I don’t think you have, I’ve been twice as guilty.”

“So let’s stop, okay?”

“Deal. But how are we going to get Dobey to give us the day off?”

“Well, they’re going to be painting the squad room, so we won’t be able to get any work done.” He took a swallow of beer, watching me. “I thought maybe we could tell him we need an afternoon to sort of decompress, after the last few weeks. I think he knows most of what went on with Kira.”

“He does?” I couldn’t hide my embarrassment.

“He’s a good detective, remember?”

“Yeah, I do,” I admitted. “Sure, Starsk, that sounds fine to me.” I tried my best to keep the happiness I felt under a strict hold. I still didn’t have any idea where he was going with this. “What brought all this on though?”

“When I saw you come out of Kira’s bedroom… I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut.”

“I’m so sorry --”

“Don’t, Hutch.” He put a hand on my knee. “I didn’t say that to make you go off on a guilt trip. I’m just trying to tell you what happened.” He swallowed more beer. When he looked at me his eyes were a deeper, more intense shade of midnight blue than I’d ever seen. “In addition to the shock, and more important I guess, was the realization that I wished it had been me, instead of her, in that bed with you.”

“Wha’?”

“Let me finish, okay?” He patted my knee and squeezed a little.

I nodded. I couldn’t have said anything intelligent anyway.

“I don’t know where it came from, that momentary flash, idea, image, vision, whatever the hell it was,” he sounded like he was angry with himself. “I really had thought I was in love with her.”

He took his hand away from my knee and concentrated on peeling the label off his beer bottle. When he looked at me again, his eyes had lost none of their intensity. “I couldn’t cope with it. I didn’t even give myself time to think, or feel, I lashed out. At you, at her, at everything! And then buried it. I didn’t let the thought back into my mind again until after we’d wrapped up the case, given her our leather-clad cold shoulders, and moved on.”

I smiled inwardly a little at the memory of that almost-matching black leather cold shouldering. She could still be standing there for all Starsky and I knew. Or cared, I hoped.

“Afterward, though,” he continued, slowly, “I did think about it. In fact, it’s all I’ve been thinking about for the past few days.”

“And…?” I could hardly breathe.

“And I realized it was true, that momentary flash I’d had. I did wish it had been me.” He drank more beer and smiled a little, lightening the fierce gaze still fixed on my face. “I’m in love with you, Hutch. Probably have been for a long time and didn’t know it.”

I guzzled half my beer, trying to get my roiling thoughts under control. Starsky was in love with me! I wasn’t the only one floundering on this dingy in the middle of the ocean. We were in this boat together. I kept my face as calm and supportive as possible though; there would be sharks in the water. We needed to be careful. I waited.

“I want to be with you, babe,” Starsky said. “I want to make love with you. I don’t know if I’ll be any good at it, ain’t had any practice since ‘Nam and that was nothin’ to write home about.” His self-effacing grin was almost painful to see. “My friend, Jim, and I, hand-jobbin’ each other once in a blue moon, to keep from goin’ crazy.”

“You don’t have to explain, Starsk.” I needed to calm my own emotions as much as alleviate his distress.

“Not right now, no.” He sounded relieved. “But I’ll tell you about all of it someday.”

“Okay. Whenever you’re ready.”

“I’m sorry about the silent treatment this past week,” he said, remorse heavy in his voice, “I needed time to come to terms with things myself. Wondering what you’d say when I told you. Maybe you wouldn’t even want to be my partner any more.”

I opened my mouth to say something that would probably sound inane, but he put up a hand and stopped me.

“If you decide you don’t want to dump me, I promise I’ll do everything I can to make you the happiest man on earth.”

“I already am.” I hoped he heard the conviction in my voice.

He blinked, as if that was the last response he expected. “Really?”

“Really, Starsk.” I unclenched his fingers from the bottle and entwined them with my own.

He sat up straighter, cocked his head and grinned. “Okay then!” He got up and began pacing. “I have no idea how we’ll make it work… with our jobs and all.”

“We’ll be careful,” I assured him. And myself.

“You bet your ass we will!” He shrugged and blushed. “Well, my ass, too, I guess.” He came back, sat down and picked up my hand. His smile showed confidence with a hint of seduction. “I’ll cover your ass if you’ll cover mine, partner.”

Suddenly, I couldn’t get a word out of my mouth.

He tried to wait out my speechlessness, I know he did. His patience finally deserted him though. “So, whadaya say?”

“Yes.”

“‘Yes’?”

“Yes!” I repeated, more forcefully.

“‘Yes,’ what?” He was clearly trying to be ornery. His eyes were sparkling.

“Yes to everything!” I nearly shouted. “Yes, I love you, too. Yes, I want to make love with you. Yes, I want to do something special tomorrow, for our own holiday. Yes, I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

I swear it looked as if his grin was going to split his face. I was sure I’d never seen him as happy in all the years we’d known each other.

“But can we please eat some of this cookie?” I begged. “The smell is driving me up the wall!”

He got up, brought a paring knife from the rack and handed it to me.

I made several uneven cuts through the circle and lifted out the part that said ‘MINE’. I held it out to him.

He opened his mouth and bit off a corner.

I brought the rectangle to my mouth and bit off another corner. “Hmmmm… soft, just the way I like them.”

“Your mom bake ‘em too long, did she?”

“My mother never baked them at all! And cook knew exactly how I liked them. It was other kids’ mothers that didn’t understand about taking the sheet out of the oven before the official minutes had elapsed, so that they could finish baking from only the heat of the pan. That way they stayed soft and moist instead of being hard and brittle.”

I held the cookie out again and he took another, larger bite.

“Hard is good in some things, pal…” he wiggled his eyebrows, “but definitely not in chocolate chip cookies.”

I know the heat was rising up my neck. The situation was threatening to get completely out of control. Were we both ready for this, I wondered. His eyes silently told me he was, so I put every one of my misgivings away and poured my soul into his gaze.

I took another bite then nearly lost my fingers when Starsky leaned forward quickly and took the remainder in his own mouth.

We finished the piece simultaneously with our first kiss. It was sweet and chocolatey, soft and wet, mind-blowingly delicious, and incendiary.

*******

Of course the following day changed both of our lives.

*******

The timer dinged. I donned mitts, turned the oven off and removed the sheet. I put it down on the pre-arranged hot pads on the table and shed the mitts.

Starsky padded across the room in his stocking feet and put his arm around my waist. “Smells good, babe.”

I put my arm around his shoulders and drew him close. “Sure does.”

I stared for a minute at the arrangement of chocolate chips in the center of the huge cookie:  
BE  
MINE  
S&H DAYS XXXVII

Starsky and I had commemorated our two-day anniversary each year; the night we became lovers and the next day, when he overcame death. We’ve quietly celebrated every day in between, too. We never took each other, or anything else, for granted again.

*******

No one ever knows  
Could we go on if we did?  
We just make it work

END


End file.
